Starling (23 page)

from herself because he heard of her plan to break Luca out of
prison? Did he think she was dead?
“I see. I assumed he was coming back here for you, but he did
mention a project he was working on—something special he desired
to paint for Belladonna that he didn’t want to do from memory.”
Cass couldn’t help but be disappointed. So he had returned to
Venice to curry favor with his patroness. She didn’t know why she
was surprised. Cass had explicitly informed Falco that Belladonna
was the leader of the Florentine chapter of the Order of the Eternal
Rose, and was most likely involved in all manner of sinister things,
and he had only responded as if Cass were insane. And then he had
started talking about how many commissions Belladonna had gotten
him, how she was changing his life for the better.
Cass hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Falco she had watched his exquisitely life-changing patroness bathing in human blood, but she
had no doubt he would just brush away what she’d seen in the church
as a hallucination or a dream. He refused to believe anything that he
couldn’t prove. He took nothing on faith, not even Cass.
“Do you know if Signorina Briani is also in Venice?” Cass asked,
thinking of the execution notice. She took another drink of her ale.
Feliciana shrugged. “It was just Falco and me in our carriage.”
Cass wasn’t convinced. Either Belladonna was gathering her
blood in Venice or Joseph Dubois’s physician, Angelo de Gradi, had
returned and immediately put her technique into practice. And the
upstairs rooms at Palazzo Viaro did remind Cass of the room at
Palazzo della Notte where she had seen Hortensa Zanotta undressing for a strange man the night before she was executed.
“So, please, Cass,” Feliciana said. “Tell me what happened. I
need to hear it in your words, how my sister died.”
Cass placed her hands in her lap, again wishing she had a rosary to clutch. She didn’t want to relive a moment of that day, but
she owed it to Feliciana. “Siena approached someone who worked
at the Palazzo Ducale, a friend of yours, a boy who drew her a map,”
she started. “We knew exactly where to go so as not to be discovered.” Cass explained how she and Siena had hidden in the wine
room until it was late enough that they could sneak about the palazzo’s hallways undetected.
“And then?” Feliciana leaned forward across the table.
Before Cass could answer, the door to the tavern swung open and
a trio of men entered, dressed in dark clothing, with heavy wooden
clubs hanging from their belts. Each had a crest on his left sleeve—a
griffin holding a flaming sword.
Cass swallowed hard. She swilled down the rest of her goblet of
ale. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I need to go.”
“Go? But we just got here,” Feliciana protested. “Besides, what
about the storm?”
“Look at their sleeves. Those men work for Dubois,” Cass hissed.
“I cannot let them recognize me.”
Grabbing one last bit of cheese for the road, she hurried out of the
tavern, with Feliciana right at her heels. Clouds of mist hung in the
air, and thunder growled. Canals and cobblestones stretched out
around her, but the gathering twilight had shrouded the Rialto in an
unfamiliar cloak. Cass wasn’t certain of which way to go.
“This way.” Feliciana disappeared into an alley, tugging Cass behind her at the pace of a galloping horse. She turned once, and then
again, navigating the lanes as if she could see in the dark.